


The Stuff Time Lords Are Made Of

by XOXOCendi



Series: I Was Going To Be With You, Forever [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Time Lord Donna Noble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-19 17:38:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17605889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XOXOCendi/pseuds/XOXOCendi
Summary: Many times, the Doctor saved Donna. One time, he didn't.





	The Stuff Time Lords Are Made Of

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! I tried really hard not to write anything, but I failed. I hope you like this. This is a precursor to another story, one that will be multi-chapter.

It was twenty years before Donna noticed a difference. Or a lack thereof.

 

_ “You’ve got to tell me your secret, Donna.”  
_

_ She was sitting in the breakroom, a cup of tea nestled between her fingers, when she heard her name. Donna turned her head to see one of her coworkers come in; Anita was her name. The brunette made her way past Donna to the hot water kettle.  _

_ “Beg your pardon?” the ginger asked, lofting a brow. _

_ Anita fixed herself a cup of tea before she sat down across the table from Donna. “You know, your skin care routine?” _

_ Donna tilted her head to the side. She considered the things she’d done that morning. “Wash, rinse, moisturizer… can’t imagine it’s very different from yours.” _

_ Anita had brought the cup to her lips, sipped, and set it back down. “Oh, it must be. You’re, what, sixty? You don’t look a day over thirty-five!” Donna’s forehead creased. “I swear, the more product I use, the worse I look. Stuff is rubbish! So, out with it.” _

_ Donna blinked. “I don’t do anything unusual…” _

_ “Come now. Is it illegal? I won’t tell anyone. A pull? Sacrificial ritual? Wait, I know, you’re a vampire.” _

_ “I’m not a vampire.” _

_ “That sounds like something a vampire would say.” _

_ “You’re bonkers.” _

 

But now, here Donna was, standing in the bathroom, looking at her reflection in the mirror.

Anita was right. She  _ did _ look young. Or younger than she should. She looked the same as she did twenty years ago, and she hadn’t even realized! She brought her hands to her face and pulled at her cheeks. She released the hold after a moment. Her skin returned immediately to its original place. No change, except the slight pink tint from the manipulation. 

It made no sense. Her mother had never looked that good. She could even see signs of age in her best mates. Or rather, the mates she had left.

It was hard to keep people around when one had the issues Donna did.

She’d been in and out of hospitals for the last twenty or so years. Test after test, brain scan after brain scan, but nothing could explain the holes in her memory. The specialists couldn’t explain it. She’d even been tested for MS, but everything came back normal. Finally, they diagnosed her with epilepsy, but Donna had never experienced a seizure that she knew of.

And the worst bits... the gaps didn’t stop! Time after time, she’d wake up with no recollection of any of the events earlier that week, or month. She’d see a news broadcast about something outrageous, and wonder how in the hell she missed that. To this day she had no idea how Brexit came to pass. She had no memory of voting in it, and surely she would have! Donna had missed out on so much of her life. The one saving grace were her looks. They made it easier to create new memories.

But still, the cycle of gaining and losing mates over the years had tired her out. Her faulty memory or jealousy over her appearance drove nearly everyone away.

The one constant was the skinny man in the blue box that was always in her dreams.

She’d been seeing him for so long, it had gotten difficult to differentiate him between fantasy and reality. She once asked Gramps about him, but the old man had no insight, and her mother told her she needed to get her head out of the stars. She stopped telling her mother about things that day, and moved out shortly after. Now, Gramps was gone and she hadn’t seen her mum in a few months.

The phone ringing brought Donna back to earth.

_ “Have you seen the Telly?”  _ Anita’s voice on the other line came through when she picked it up.

“Erm… no?” Donna made her way to her living room and looked for the remote. She finally spotted it sticking out from the sofa cushions. She turned it on while Anita spoke again.

_ “It’s another one of those alien invasions! I’m tellin’ you, Donna, it’s the end of days!” _

“Bullocks,” she said. “We’ve had ‘em before and were doing just fine.”  Of course, Donna had only heard of them. Gaps in her memory always seemed to include some extra-terrestrial terror the rest of London experienced.  But she didn’t tell Anita that. Still, the erratic brunette continued taking while Donna’s attention was focused on the news reporter. Live footage of a spaceship hovering over the city was being broadcast, and the Prime Minister had already declared it a national emergency.  The area looked familiar , and Donna stepped to her apartment window. “Christ, Anita, it’s outside my flat!”

_ “That’s what I’ve been saying, Donna! We need to evacuate!” _

Oddly, Donna felt calm. “Don’t lose your head, Anita. Just–” A knock at her door interrupted her. “I’ve gotta go. Someone’s here.” She brought the phone away from her ear, despite Anita’s protest to not answer the door, and clicked it off.

She knew how stupid she was being, but she felt compelled to open her door. God only knew what was on the other side, but she couldn’t stop her feet from going to it. In one last shred of sanity, she looked through the peephole.

No alien. Just a man.

Not just any man. It was  _ him _ .

Quickly, she released the chain and threw the door open.

“Donna.” The man smiled at her.

“It’s you…” The man from her dreams. The skinny one with the blue box.

“Yes, it’s me, Donna. The Doctor.”  Images ran through her mind. Memories she’d never seen before, never lived. How was this possible? He wasn’t real!  “Oh, I can assure you I am. But you already know that, don’t you?” He answered her questions, but she hadn’t even asked them out loud.  “I know,” he continued, “but I have no time to explain.” And with that, he reached for her, his fingertips resting against her temples. She parted her lips to speak, but before she could, his lips came crashing against hers.

She meant to push him away, this stranger. Her hands had even rose to press against his chest… but she couldn’t. Not when he filled her thoughts so completely.

No, not thoughts. 

_ Memories. _

Her wedding. The adipose, The Ood and their hauntingly sad song. Agatha Christie and the giant wasp and that kiss she’d shared with the strange man once before. The biological metacrisis and becoming the Doctor Donna.

She hadn’t forgotten; she’d been wiped clean of his memory. He did it to save her. Time and time again, he’d returned to clear her memory. All to save her brain from frying her to death.

So why was he giving it all back now? Surely he knew it would kill her! Or was this a better way for her to die, spared from whatever miserable fate the invaders had for humanity?

Donna stood there, lips still against the Doctor’s as he filled her with a lifetime of memories. Two lifetimes, hers and his. How long had be been kissing her?

A century had passed before he stopped and pulled back slowly.

Donna stood there for a moment, stunned. But she  _ knew _ now. She knew everything.

“Oi, you nutter!” Her shout startled herself, and she shoved him back gently. “You’re still not mating with me!”

“Finally. We’ve got to go. We have a world to save.” He smiles at her, and she gave that all-knowing smile right back.

“Better not waste anymore time then”

He needed that brilliant mind of hers, open and filled with all the knowledge of the universe. That beautifully human-time lord chimera of her mind. He needed help only the Doctor Donna could provide him, and when all was said and done, she followed him into the TARDIS and it felt like she had never left.

“There’s something I don’t quite understand, Doctor.” She leaned against the center console as he flipped a few switches and pulled a lever.

“It’s because now, you’re more Time Lady.” He was doing it again; reading her mind.  She cocked her head to the side. Could she also read his? Maybe, if she tried. “In time, perhaps.”

“I need you to stop that. It’s unsettling.”

“Right,” he said, looking up from the console. “It shouldn’t have worked. The knowledge of the universe should be burning you right now. But here you are, perfectly fine.”

“I’m aware.”

“I’ve been checking on you, Donna. Every time I came back to wipe your memory, I checked. Even when you didn’t need me. And when you were hit by Davros’ energy, it didn’t just activate your mind. It activated the alien DNA your body absorbed.  And like all things, Donna, you evolved. It was a theory, a risk, but I had to take it. If I didn’t, you’d have been lost anyway.”

Donna remained still? Even after the Doctor stopped speaking. It was a solid minute before she spoke again. “So… I’m more Time Lord than human now, am I?”

“In layman’s terms, yeah.”

“Huh.” She went quiet, processing the new information.

“Theoretically, you’ll remain the same as you are, forever. You won’t die of old age, but you won’t regenerate either. Your brain just… needed time to heal, I suppose.”

“To heal with alien DNA.”

“Right.” The Doctor went back to fixing a few things on his ship.

“So why did you kiss me?” she asked.  He had to touch her to give her back her memory, but he’d done that with his fingers against her temples. So why the kiss?

The Doctor lifted his head and gave her a cheeky smile. “I just really missed you.”

She smiled in return. “Well, hurry up, dumbo. The Doctor Donna is back, and you’re mad if you think you’re leaving me behind again.”

He pressed a few buttons. “Great! What do you say we visit Alaria Prime? They’ve got beautiful waterfalls there.”

“Sounds perfect, Spaceman.” She turned to the center console and flipped the switch she knew he’d flip anyway.

 


End file.
